


Say When

by invincibleironwoman



Category: Breakout Kings
Genre: AU, Angst, M/M, Rare Pairing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-07
Updated: 2012-06-07
Packaged: 2017-11-07 03:29:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/426456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/invincibleironwoman/pseuds/invincibleironwoman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You, Ray Zancanelli, have never known how to say "when".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Say When

 When you met, you were hoping he wasn’t there to ask about a job. He walked into the bar and sidled up to your side. At that point, bars were the only place to find you sober. You went home wasted or you didn’t make it home. He came right up to you and it was clear he’d been watching you for a while. He was tall and slim with miles of dark, golden skin. You weren’t sure if he’d acknowledge what you were doing at that particular bar because you’d been making eyes at a guy across the room for the past hour and by the looks of it, he was ready to follow you outside.

You took a swig of your drink and refused to meet his dark, critical eyes. He stood like a US Marshall, back stiff as a board and hair trimmed neat and pristine. He held that air of impartial authority, like a fight could break out and he would be able to handle it without breaking a sweat. You didn’t have to pat him down to tell he was packing… but God did part of you want to. Maybe it was the hunger you’d been so close to satiating moments before he’d walked in or maybe it was the challenging glint to his eye. Like he knew what you’d been thinking and he finally spoke.

He held out a hand, expression never changing. “Charlie DuChamp. You’re Ray Zancanelli.” He didn’t make it sound like a question and you knew exactly why. Everyone in the department knew about your bust with the money, your suspension, why you were in that bar and wasted so close to when most men were getting off work.

You confirmed it anyway because if you couldn’t own up to your own name, what did you have? “Yep. That would be me. What do you want DuChamp?” It certainly wasn’t what you’d come here for. He probably wanted any leads he had on outstanding cases or maybe he was here as a prank. He was gonna ask how to keep from fucking up catastrophically the way you did. You eyed him out of the corner of your eye, sizing him up. He looked pretty well muscled, a little slim for your tastes but he would certainly be able to handle himself around a suspect. Maybe he wanted interrogation training. You were pretty well known for that.

A glimmer of a smirk graced his face before it was back to business. “That’s no way to talk to your potential employer.” He leaned forward on the counter and picked at the bowl of peanuts. His eyes cut to yours quick enough for him to catch that you were watching but not fast enough to catch your eyes on his ass. “I’m starting a new project. I found your proposal: using cons to catch cons. I wanna fast track it, get approval from my boss and I want to start looking into the cons you suggested. If I’m gonna do this, I want you.”

You almost choke on your beer and in a flash you scan the room for Pretty Mouth but if he’s still around, he’s moved on to someone else. “What?”

DuChamp doesn’t even stifle his chuckle and it further irritates you that even that sounds sexy. How hard up for it are you Zancanelli? “You heard me. The team needs you.” He turns around to lean his back into the counter, stretching out in front of you. Apparently you’re really hard up for it because just the feel of his heat against your arm is making you hard in your jeans. “I need you.”

And you half want him to leave so your body can settle down but you half want him to stay because not only is your idea coming to fruition but the man making it happen is just too delicious to walk away from. You settle for a halfway point. “Yeah. Okay. Where do I sign?”

DuChamp gives a stern nod and makes to stand up straighter, that rigid posture striking again. He claps you on the back once, just once. Like he went for the family “bro” thing but he wasn’t quite used to touching other people. That’s okay because even that, the feel of his hot hand on the middle of your back got your blood racing further. As if he knew he stepped a little further from you.

“Alright.” He straightened his jacket and started off towards the door. You set down your beer too loudly, confused how quickly this was over. You start to wonder if your desire was obvious and you’d just ruined your only job prospect when he turns around and tosses “Well come on. I’ve got the paper work in my car” over his shoulder. You’re so eager to follow that you trip yourself on the way out.

You stalk after him for quite a while before he stops suddenly and you have to squint to see the immaculate black SUV a few feet ahead. You’re uncertain and your heart starts to beat faster the same way it did after that one guy tried to get rough with you and you had to set the record straight. You stand your ground, feet planted when he opens the passenger side door and climbs inside. You hear him rummaging around for something and your guard goes further up until he appears again, manila folder in hand.

He places the folder on the hood of the car and pats his pockets for a pen. His jacket lifts high enough for a moment just long enough to see that you’d guessed right, he was carrying a gun at his waist but by the shine on his leather holster, either he’d never pulled it or he’d never had to. You add to your assessment and decide that maybe you’ve misjudged him and calculated him to be more of a threat than he was. Maybe he really had just come into that bar to offer you a job and that was it. Wouldn’t it be just like you to make this out to be more than it is?

He shoves the pen at you, sighs and leans back against the passenger side door. For a man with suck stringent posture, he always seemed to be leaning on things. You start signing, keeping a watchful eye on him when he licks his lips the pen slips and to your mortification, it manages to make its way to the gravel. You crouch down and retrieve it, avoiding his gaze when you come back up because you just know he’s laughing it up. If it wasn’t obvious before, it was clear now. You finish the rest of your crummy signature with a haggard scrawl and hand the pen back to him. You have no idea how he manages to send heat crawling up your arms through a brush of fingertips.

Hiking your jeans up, you’re all set to turn around and see if you can’t still scope out Pretty Mouth when you feel his gaze burrowing holes into your back. You spin back around to see him eying you, his dark eyes filled with something you’re pretty sure you’ve misinterpreted. And really, if you can manage to get away with ogling your new superior officer and getting a new job at all, you’ll take it.

“Something else?” You ask, biting at your lip and you see him mimic you and start to do the same thing. Except on him, all it does is send, if possible, more blood flowing down south.

“You tell me.” He crosses his arms, hips posed towards you and goddamnit, he makes such a beautiful sight. His eyes stay on you and you grow more and more unsure of the situation. Finally, he takes pity on you and spits it out. No bullshit, no metaphors—he cuts straight to the chase. “Your knees.”

You feel your cock jump in your jeans, positive you heard wrong. “What?”

His expression doesn’t change, not a hint of emotion graces his face. “Your knees.” You both know it’s your desperation and your hunger for this moment that has you dropping to the ground. It’s by no sense of authority or thirst to show your gratitude because had anyone else offered this, you’d have told them to shove it.

You’ve only just met but you dropped to the ground quick enough to leave your jacket fluttering down with you. You don’t chance looking up and you’re not sure if that’s because you’re afraid his gaze will make you more ashamed or you’re afraid he’ll tell you to forget it. You see your hands reaching up to unbutton and unzip his jeans and if either of you were unsure about where this was headed, you were sure now. Your mouth is open and watering before he’s even out and you find yourself leaning forward to immerse yourself in his heady smell of leather from his belt and holster and the scent of his sweat overshadowed by cologne. You’ve just met but you feel like you know him in a way that nobody else ever will. You know his scent, the shape of his cock, that he had no qualms about soliciting a blow job in a parking lot from a stranger and when you feel the cold inch of metal on the back of your head, you’re quite positive his wife doesn’t even know what you know.

He doesn’t force your head forward, in fact he barely steers it in any direction at all. He stands there and lets you nuzzle your nose into the flat of his hip, breathing hot and heavy there until the slight strain of the muscle tells you you’ve gone on too long. You pull back and barely waste any time before you grasp his cock and lick a swipe along the bottom. You meet his eyes and see that, while he’s trying his best to keep an eye on you, his eyes keep fluttering closed as he gives in to the urge to let his head fall back. You keep watching him, closing your mouth around the head and tonguing the slit. It becomes your goal in life to elicit a sound, just one uninhibited moan from this man. You employ every technique you’ve ever learned and work his cock until he’s gasping out some cut off version of your name and your erection reaches its peak.

You suck him down until the head reached the back of your throat. His hips start to pump forward, his moans freely given now and you have to stop watching as the possibility of coming in your pants becomes more real. His hands tighten on the back of your head and you feel the heat in the pit of your stomach pool together at the prospect of him taking complete control and fucking your face, coming down your throat. You let out a moan around his cock and feel his hips spasm once. The anticipation really starts to get to you and you’re one breeze away from losing it when he pulls out.

You don’t even bother trying to maintain any form of decorum and rasp out “It’s okay. Come in my mouth.” And when he doesn’t comply, you open your eyes only to find his leaking cock hovering over your mouth. You start to sit up on your knees, mouth open and aching for it when his hands stop you again. You’re about to ask what he wants when he starts pumping his hand, aiming straight for your mouth. The first splash of come on your cheek doesn’t even register over how hard you’ve come. He finishes on your face and leaves you there with a new job.

 

The team isn’t everything you expected. Two cons get sent back not long after you start, Lowery won’t stop complaining and Shea has problems following orders. Charlie hires Erica without telling you and when you chew him out about it, he doesn’t even look up from his desk. You’re hovering in the doorway after the argument wondering where you went wrong and you realize that you weren’t supposed to call him Charlie. Not at work.

The first time you meet Marisol, she’s way too friendly for a woman with a philandering husband. You’re fully aware that she doesn’t know about you two. It’s more than the fact that she’s kind to you and every bit the woman Charlie describes her to be.  No, you know she has no idea about your relationship with her husband because you sincerely doubt she’d be pouring you lemonade and asking about the team if she knew only half an hour earlier, her husband had you bent over the dresser upstairs, his palm cupped over your mouth to keep you quiet.

She was polite and gracious and full of stories about Charlie and all you could think about was the feel of him filling you up, his words in your ear “You’re gonna have to be quiet Ray, she’s right downstairs”, the hoarseness of his throat when you finished. She gave you a hug when you left and you drove home smelling of sex and guilt.

 

When you learn about Charlie’s heart, you’re furious. The whole argument is a blur but you’re pretty sure Charlie ignored half of it. “Bottom line is: you should’ve told me.”

“I don’t owe you anything, Ray. We work together, that’s it!” And you know the cons are outside the door but the denial makes your blood boil.

“That’s not all we do, is it, Charlie?” You spat just to watch his eyes flash and get him out of his chair. And for a minute, just for a moment, you wonder if, in all the arguments you’ve had, he’d ever found himself on the brink of cardiac arrest. If you’ve ever nearly pushed him over the edge because he’d never say anything, he’s never the one to back down first.

“Ray.” A warning, a dare. “This isn’t about that.”

“Maybe not. Maybe this is about you leaving me in the dark once again.”

“I don’t—“

“You never tell me anything and this time it nearly got us killed!” You yell, hearing the tell-tale sign that Jules knocked over half the contents of her desk.

“So this is about you?” He snapped. “I had your back.”

“You didn’t give me a chance to have yours. You could’ve died.” You sat kneeled down behind the desk, where you’d been several times before but under completely different circumstances. “What would I have done, Charlie? You’re all I got, man.”

His hands land on your shoulders but he doesn’t push you away. You sit there for as long as you can stand it before you get up to send the cons off.

 

The first time the team has to stay overnight, you and Charlie play rock paper scissors for who has to stay with Lowery. You’re positive you played to get out of spending the night with Lloyd and a bit sure Charlie played to keep you from spending the night with Erica. You became sure of this when he woke you up, two in the morning and knocked on the door. You shuffled your way to the door, checking to see that Erica was still fast asleep and grabbing your gun holster on the way.

Charlie was leaning against the wall beside the doorjamb, arms crossed and mouth tight. “What is it?” You step into the hallway and let the door close quietly behind you. Charlie doesn’t look at you, not directly and he starts walking down the hall to the ice room. You sighed and followed him there, hoping, almost needing him to ask about the little stunt Erica had pulled in the room earlier.

He checks the hall when you enter, a distasteful glance at the fact that the room doesn’t have a door. Finally, he settles back against one of the machines and asks, “What happened?”

And you’re about to ask the obvious, “What are you talking about?” when he points to your neck. You lift your hand but he’s there feeling your neck for you, the soft pads of his fingertips on skin you didn’t remember being tender. “Erica.” You mumble, watching him frown.

“That’s why you wanted to room with her.” He states, stepping back and glaring at you and you resist the urge to punch him.

“I didn’t want to room with her. I didn’t want to room with Lowery more.” And you hate yourself for feeling the need to explain when he goes home to Marisol every night and has sex with her and you’re not allowed to spend the night in the same room with another woman. It’s not fair and you were loyal anyway. You were loyal to a man that didn’t owe you anything.

“Yeah, right. Just admit it, Ray.” He touched at your neck again, rougher than before. “You wanted to fuck her.”

“Maybe I just wanted to be on top for once. Ever consider that?” His hand traces the tender spot once more before the length of it closes around your throat. Not tight enough to choke but enough that the spot was covered.

“Okay.” He says after a moment, eyes back on yours. You swallowed thickly, feeling the weight of his palm as you try to figure him out.

“Okay, what?” His hand is gone faster than you can reach out and pull it back. He pushes in closer to you and kisses you, silencing whatever protest you had because he’s never kissed you. You’ve tried, several times you’ve tried and you’ve been shut down every time. You’re so starved for it that you press back, too eager and your teeth clack together. But he doesn’t stop, doesn’t pull back and he’s just as eager and making these delicious groans in the back of his throat.

When he does pull back, you’re ashamed to see that you’ve nearly come from a kiss; this is how strung out he’s made you. He kisses you one more time before shuffling over to the counter next to the machine. He stares at the cabinets for so long that you’re certain he’s about to end this fragile thing when he barks out an order and you’re too scared to hear it.

“What?”

“Are you gonna take me or not?” He tosses over his shoulder in one, gruff breath and his shirt is off in the next.

 

When Shea gets into it with Charlie over leaving him undercover you keep it from coming to blows, all the while knowing Charlie maybe deserved it. Con or not, you should’ve listened when he asked to be taken out. You’d approached asking Charlie in 3 different ways and he shut all of them down.

You followed Charlie to the garage after the cons had been sent home and as usual, he offered you a ride and you got in without question. It’s only after he passes the second exit after the one to the halfway house that you realize he’s not taking you home. You start to ask but you’ve been fighting all day and you’re tired of it. If Charlie wants to drive you out of town and toss you in a river, you’d be okay with that if it meant you’d stop arguing.

You’re silent the entire ride and when he pulls into his driveway, you’re only a little surprised. He gets out, taking his bag with him and doesn’t spare you a single glance. He opens the front door and kicks it open wide for you to follow. You’re unsure of what to do, if Marisol’s home, what you’re expected to say when the owner of the halfway house asks where you’ve been. He answers all of your questions the second you sit down.

“Marisol’s visiting her mother in Michigan for the weekend and I told the halfway house I needed you for the convict’s reviews.” He takes two beers out of the fridge and sets yours on the counter. He turns around and if you want it, you’re going to have to reach past him. It’s this kind of teenage shit that makes you think he’s forgotten this is an affair. Hell, this is even less than an affair because at least then you’d feel like some part of you mattered. At least then the goal would be to stay away when you’re not having sex instead of waking up every day to have him boss you around.

“But we don’t have to do any convict’s reviews. Not this month.” You say like an idiot because the prospect of an entire night alone with Charlie, in his house is making you more nervous than that first night you met him.

He doesn’t spare you a response, taking another long drag from his beer. Long enough to see his throat working, that spot you liked to run your tongue over bared for you to see but you stay put.

“Charlie, why’re you doin’ this?” He wipes a hand across his mouth, eyes trained on you. “I mean it. Don’t you feel bad?”

“About what, Ray?” He took a few steps, made some decision you weren’t privy to and shook his head. “Fucking you? Hiring you? What?”

That stung a bit but you hoped you kept your face clear. “What about your wife?” You couldn’t bring yourself to say her name out loud. Not here and not when you were talking about this thing between you, putting it into words.

Charlie stared you down, his mouth turning down at the corners and you almost thought he would pick up the keys and take you home but instead he took another sip of his beer. He drained the bottle, the muscles in his throat working to down it as fast as possible. When he finished, he caught your eye and leaned against the counter, in front of your bottle. “You want this beer or not?”

The real question was there, thinly veiled and you could almost taste the salt on his neck a few feet away. You shake your head but you’re reaching for that beer before you even process that you’re moving and you hate yourself for enjoying every sip of it.

 

You woke up one morning and found that you just couldn’t do it anymore. You couldn’t take looking his wife in the eye and ignoring the guilt turning your stomach. You couldn’t take the jealousy that threatened to claw its way into your throat when he spoke about Marisol. You weren’t sure how much longer you could swallow down the words you weren’t allowed to mean.

When you told him, he crossed his arms, stood up straight and didn’t shake your gaze until you were finished. You grit your teeth and got on with it, all the while knowing you might render this speech completely useless in a few minutes, days, and months.

He asked you one question and you couldn’t even answer that. “It’s not enough?”

You don’t say anything and isn’t that just like you, never speaking up when it’s necessary but you can’t shut your mouth any other time. He must’ve gotten some kind of answer from that.

He swallowed before sitting down at his desk and getting back to work. He didn’t spare you another glance and when you turned around to leave his office, he called out to you.

“Good for you, Ray.”

And rendered your whole spiel speechless in the minutes it took to close the door and drop down to your knees.

 

Working with Charlie after was everything you thought it would be. Tense because he was working overboard to act like it wasn’t. Annoying because now you weren’t dealing with a partner that made jokes to keep you loose and happy but one that took shots at you and made them hurt. You weren’t sure if he was punishing you for trying to end it or for your weakness after. Either way, you couldn’t look him eye when he wasn’t pounding into you and that fact alone made the whole situation unbearable.

Every now and then, you’d catch Julianne throwing you sympathy bones like she knew something had changed. When Charlie barked at you to bring him coffee and then snapped at you for not fixing it right, she was the one that instructed you how he liked it. When he said, “You can’t even put files in the right order; you’re a fucking joke, Ray”, she was the one to rearrange them. When he went as far as to chuck his paperweight at your head for supposedly neglecting to send for approval of an expense’s report, it takes everything in you not to yell back “I don’t know how to do any of this shit because while you were busy learning how to run a task force, I was on my knees learning how to suck your cock.” Instead, you pick the broken pieces up from the floor and ask Jules where the broom is.

She shows you to the small closet and you nod your thanks but she stops you. “It’s over, isn’t it?”

“Everything’s fine, Jules. We’re not losing the team. Charlie and I are just going through a little rough patch, that’s all.”

Her hands are hurried, mouth in a thin line before she says, “That’s what I meant. You and Charlie. It’s over, isn’t it?”

This is it, and your heart is pumping faster than it should. Aside from a few pointed comments from Shea and shameful statistics from Lowery, no one has ever called you out. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jules.” You tell yourself that it’s not really a lie because it’s not over. You couldn’t even manage that.

She nods and looks almost upset. “We all… we all _knew_. He wouldn’t look at us the way he looked at you. Not just the cons, he… he never looked at me that way.”

You try to calm down a bit and stare up at the dust floating around the bare bulb in the closet. “What way?”

“Like he’s waiting for your approval. Like… like if he waited and didn’t get it, he’d have to keep trying until he did.” She wrung her hands together and tried for that nervous, birdlike smile. “He needs you to tell him how he’s doing.”

That got a laugh. “Yeah, right. He never listens to a word I say.”

“He does when it counts, Ray.” She pulled the string and the closet light goes out. You numbly follow her into the hallway where she surprises you by giving you a hug. “He’d have fired me by now.”

That day, you take a few extra minutes after the cons leave to stand in front of Charlie, after a day of being yelled at for things beyond your control. He looks up at you and you can see the line of his shoulders as he braces himself. “Let’s hear it, Ray.”

“You’re a good man, Charlie. All… _this_ aside.” And you leave him there.

 

When Charlie dies there are no words. Yeah, you give the cons a speech. You give the higher ups reassurances. You even manage a bone grating hug for Marisol because you owe her so much more and this is all you can spare for a woman that will go to her grave believing a lie. But when you’re alone, you can’t manage a single sound. Not a single word for the man that you loved.

You wish you had gathered the courage to end it because what you had wasn’t really anything if at his funeral you sat rows behind his wife and family. It wasn’t really anything if you had to work through days you could barely get out of bed because the affair would’ve been blatant had you stayed home. It wasn’t really anything if the only people to see you truly grieve were a group of cons. The hug Jules gave you on the first day back nearly brought you to your knees because it was the first gesture that someone else knew exactly what he’d meant to you and the effort it had taken to keep pounding the pavement when you wanted nothing more than to hunt down the piece of shit that shot Charlie.

You began to welcome going home because you could climb into bed and be alone in your wordless silence, still unable to fill the air with all the things you were allowed to say now because the only person they could hurt was sitting on a mantle somewhere. You tell yourself that had you had the decency to end the whole thing that day in Charlie’s office, you’d be in an entirely different situation now. And maybe you’re right but deep down you know that had never been an option.

You, Ray Zancanelli, have never known how to say “when”. Until someone said it for you.

 

 


End file.
